A Cruel, Hard World
by Shadowing
Summary: Alex Rider is now a criminal, and also an expert on terrorists. Sent to help the Avengers who knows what will happen when they start to uncover his secrets? ADOPTED BY ObsessivelyOdd- THANK YOU FOR THE SUPPORT!
1. Chapter 1

**CHAPTER ONE**

_We are giving you to America, _Mrs Jones had said. Had said, with that fucking patronising blank face and mint breath and power she had over him, over everything to do with him. _As a gesture of goodwill. Relations have been strained recently, and besides; all terrorist organisations you have the expertise with have moved to America, no longer being active in Europe. You are needed elsewhere. _Giving you. Giving him, as if he was some toy, to be leant out, some bargaining tool, some- _Remember, Alex, _she'd said with that same blank face, _we always have the proof to put you straight in jail._

_And of course, since the crime was done in China, we could always follow the course of justice and hand you over to the China authorities; it would be short work to put you in front of the firing squad._

He'd punched her for that, a satisfying smash in the face, and she'd jumped back and he'd felt a wave of satisfaction at the _crack, _at the red liquid dripping down her face- and the next thing he knew he was waking up in a plane, informed he was on a one way trip to America.

America. The land of dreams. Of opportunities. Opportunities to be used by the American government for his extensive knowledge on the odd twenty or so terrorist groups he had become affiliated with in the past year; opportunities to do nothing until they needed him, and so waste away in boredom until some explosive few days when they'd take him out to look at some terrorist group and many people would get blown up and he'd have the inevitable showdown with the evil villain from his past and he had to be careful not to yawn or they'd get mad before they'd finished the Big Speech, which would document all their evil plans and broken pasts which served for motivation, etc., etc. Then he might try and run away, and he'd get caught, and sent back to MI6. Or, in this case it would be CIA, since he was officially American Property.

The last statement had been curtly told to him as a greeting by one Joe Byrne, who was currently cuffing him after his most recent escape attempt (he just couldn't resist) and now was dragging him along the streets of New York to his first assignment.

It was, as he expected, some branch of the American government wanting to use him as he was now American property for his extensive knowledge on terrorist groups, specifically the Eye, a group who'd recently acquired some supernatural help after being humiliated by him, Alex. The branch of government was some long name he couldn't quite remember, but abbreviated (Joe had told him, in the one sided, short conversation they'd had since meeting) to one word; S.H.I.E.L.D. He'd had no doubt that they would've sent him in first to weaken the defences, were it not for the supernatural help he was decidedly unsuitable for (being, unfortunately, not supernatural) so they were using some super heroes, who he would stay with for a while, providing information.

Joe steered him along a New York pav- sidewalk (he had to get into an American personnel, complete with the accent, as apparently people wouldn't like a British boy working with them) and past an couple walking their dog, who raised their eyebrows at his handcuffs and stern black-suit behind him. He scowled at them and wished, not for the first time, that he didn't have the handcuffs so he could raise a middle finger.

"Joe." he said. "Where the fuck are we going again?"

No answer.

"Joe-ey. Joey boy. You, um, forgot to mention our destination?" he tried.

To no avail.

_Damn _those spy types!

"Byrne. Joe. People are giving me weird looks. I don't like it. You know why? 'Cause of them handcuffs. If you could just take them off-"

"Alex." Joe interrupted, still steering him through crowds of people. "All this is your fault. If you hadn't punched the head of MI6, maybe you wouldn't have been given to CIA." (I so would, Alex muttered, but Joe ignored him.) "And maybe if you hadn't tried the _fifty _or so escape attempts while in America, you wouldn't have been put up on the market for anyone who needed some help with their various terrorist problems." (Always happy to help, that's me! Alex quipped, and was again ignored.) "And then SHIELD wouldn't have snatched you up, and I wouldn't be dragging you along in these damn _handcuffs _to the Avengers!"

Woah.

"Wait, wait! You. Did. Not. Just. Say. AVENGERS!?"

"That's all you got out of it?"

"Well, no shit- I'm staying with the fricking _Avengers?"_

"Yes. And they will be your _prison guards, _so don't get any delusions of meeting your idols- to them, you are a criminal, and they will treat you as such."

"Wha- criminal? Who made up that BS? After everything I've done, this is just, just fucking _great-_" Alex tore away from Joe suddenly and turned to face him, eyes with whites showing, breathing ragged, hands in cuffs clenched. Byrne was so surprised he didn't make a move to stop him. "You know who I've lost? What I've _been through? _Do you have any idea- do you have any semblance of the disgusting way the people you work for act? How they _use me? _I did _everything, _I gave _everything, _and they call me a fucking _criminal! _And you know, all I can do is go along with it or they'll _kill me!"_

He stepped back suddenly, regaining his composure. His face seemed to harden, go blank, and he raked his fingers through his hair (Joe realised with a start that he'd somehow managed to get the handcuffs off, and- yes, there they were, glittering in the gutter). "I'm sorry." he said. "I didn't mean to go on about it to you like that. It's just-" he took a deep breath, took another step backwards. "I can't hold it all in, you know? It won't happen again." He turned around, picking up the handcuffs, and handed them to a shocked Mr Byrne, proffering his hands for Joe to cuff, which he did, numbly.

"Okay." said Joe. "Let's go, then."

Because, really, there wasn't anything he could do about Alex, could he?

No. Not really.

ARA

They arrived outside the 'A' tower, known before the Loki incident as the Stark Tower and now 'remodelled' by the otherworldly criminal. There were rumours that Tony was going to change the logo to 'Avengers', seeing as all members of the team currently resided there, but that had not happened yet.

The Avengers were currently doing small tasks, travelling round the world where supernatural help was needed against supernatural forces and retiring to the tower. Lately a terrorist group self named the 'Eye' had been targeting America, particularly New York City, using obvious clumsy supernatural powers, meaning they'd either a) been granted them suddenly by an outside force or b) had suffered a mutation, both granting them with powers evidently new and unpractised.

It wasn't like it was some massive, world threatening task for the Avengers, but they were the only ones really equipped to deal with it; and besides, CIA had promised them an agent with expertise on the group, so it wasn't like they were going in completely blind.

Fury had only thought to inform them about the agent afterwards; apparently he wasn't actually a CIA agent, just a CIA... asset, prone to escape attempts, with a criminal record- which, Fury said he assumed (he hadn't found any records of the agent), was how the person knew so much about the Eye, because he had been with them, and been captured by CIA, or something of the sort- so though he would help them, they'd have to act as prison guards for the six months or so it took to bring down the group.

None were particularly pleased at the new development but they'd already accepted the mission, so had to deal with it; besides, it wasn't like they couldn't handle a mere delinquent.

Alex stepped inside and was instantly greeted by heads swinging round and suspicious stares drilling into him. He was momentarily confused; surely they wouldn't have released the news that he was (allegedly) a criminal to every single person in this tower? But then, of course; he wasn't in disguise for an older man, so still looked like a child- albeit a sixteen year old child- a demeanour he was unaccustomed to taking. He glared at all the pristine people in their starch business suits and gleaming shoes with a ferocity of a wild animal, wishing again with a fervour for the use of his middle finger.

Joe must have realised his intention, because he cinched the handcuffs tighter and walked faster to the elevator.

Elevator.

"Joe? I, um-" the doors were opening, even more curious stares (if that was possible) were turning onto them and Joe was hurrying him forwards. "Joe, not the elevator-"

And then he was in and the doors were closing-

Ah, fuck it, he could do this. Deep breaths in, deep breaths out. He was fine.

See? Didn't have claustrophobia at all. _At all._

The walls were _closing _on him they were going to get _squashed _they were going to _die _why couldn't anyone see that? Why wasn't anyone doing anything? Couldn't they feel it, the air dissipating with every breath they took, until, until- short sharp breaths, little pants, because he _couldn't waste it- _

"Alex? What's wrong?"

He shook sweat soaked hair from his eyes and stared at Joe. "Elevator- the elevator-"

Joe frowned, the doors opened. Alex tumbled out, feeling a slash of pain as his hands, restricted by the handcuffs and held by Joe, were wrenched behind him. Joe walked out and helped him stand up- they were in a modern looking, glass walled corridor with metal doors on either end- and the doors closed behind them. "You have claustrophobia?" Joe questioned.

_A weakness, don't tell him, don't TELL HIM!- _"Of a sort," he shrugged, regained composure. "Can we go?"

They went to the metal door and Joe knocked, firmly. Alex heard strains of laughter and conversation going on from the other side, which stopped at the knock, and felt a pang of excitement- he was going to see the Avengers! The Avengers! As an enemy, yes, but still- the Avengers!

A red haired woman opened the door, who Alex recognised as Natasha Romanova, a.k.a Black Widow. "Good morning, Joe." she greeted formally.

So she was on first name basis with the deputy of CIA. Interesting.

Well, so was he- it was just that Joe frowned whenever he said his name, as if he should call him Mr Byrne or some other such foolishness.

"I suppose this is the prisoner we're meant to guard?" she queried.

"The terrorist expert we're generously providing you with, yes." Joe corrected, no hint of amusement on his face as he studied her equally blank one. "I'll leave you with him, then."

His cuffs were unlocked (he could run now- spinning kick, down them both for a second, run to the elevator-) (oh crap the elevator, where the hell were the stairs?) and he was pushed into the room in front of Natasha- Black Widow- Ms Romanov- what was he meant to call her? While Joe went, walking back down the corridor and into the elevator.

Alex stumbled inside as Black Widow (the reporters called her that, so he decided it was best) slammed the door behind them, then prodded him forwards to the figures of the most famous people in the world; Bruce Banner, Tony Stark, Thor and Steve Rodgers. The only one missing, if he was right, was Clint Barton, the archer guy. They stayed where they were seated, resting languidly on sofas and watching some film on a huge ninety inch television.

"Boys." she said. "Say hello to Alex."

There was a ripple of movement as heads moved away from the screen and turned to him. Black Widow clamped a hand on his shoulder. "I assume you know who everyone is?"

He nodded, mumbled something, and tried not to stare at everyone.

The Avengers!

"And you're the criminal we're looking after, right?" And there was Tony Stark- Iron Man!- walking up to him, smirking in the way you always saw him doing in the news when he was saying something obscenely rude and/or inappropriate.

"Actually, the terrorist expert who is helping you as you can't do it yourself." he said, pleased his voice didn't break and his Texan accent stayed relatively smooth. Tony raised an eyebrow.

"Ah, a _smart _mouthed criminal. My favourite. Makes it much more entertaining when I'm kicking their asses to hell."

"Leave him alone, Tony." Banner said, elbowing Tony out of the way.

Alex was awed at the casual way they acted around each other. He was awed with the surroundings, awed at the people, and still kept scanning for the nearest exits.

"How old are you, anyway?" Banner asked, examining him closely with a half frown on his face.

Alex thought for a moment. Was he allowed to reveal that information?

No, probably not.

_Fuck them. _"Sixteen." he said, and watched everyone's eyes widen.

"What the hell did you do to get involved with so many terrorist groups _and _work against and with CIA?"

"That's what they told you?" he said half to himself, amused. Well, it wasn't like they were paid to be original.

"What do you mean by that?" Black Widow asked sharply from behind him.

Right, in a room full of super heroes. He'd forgot that.

"Nothing." he shrugged and used the classic excuse for getting out of awkward situations. "Uh, where's the toilet?"

Rodgers stood up and gripped his arm. "I'll take you."

"I can go myself, thanks." he said, half offended.

"You're not allowed anywhere unescorted." he explained shortly.

But he wasn't that offended, because; Steve Rodgers- Captain America!

"Right." he muttered, and let himself be led by the coolest old man (ever) to the bathroom. It was large and gilded and the lock was chased with gold and clicked as he turned it- Rodgers waited outside, and he leaned against the cold wall and wondered again how the hell he got there.

But- there was a window, and, well, it was open; no cameras that he could see, a clear route onto the roof, and a short gap between that and the next.

He couldn't resist.

Alex stepped on the sink and hoisted himself out of the window, feet first, balancing on the narrow ledge outside. He inched along slowly, trying not to look down. Shinning up the pipe, he lifted himself onto the roof and collapsed, taking a few short breaths before standing up and looking over at the view of snaking metal cars and tall gleaming buildings.

New York. Maybe, once he'd got some documents from an American contact, he'd stay here for a bit.

Three steps back- two giant running steps forwards, then _jump!-_

"Hey, kid!" two strong arms locked around his chest and he was dragged back from the edge of the roof.

That was where Clint Barton had gone. Figured.

"What the hell are you doing here?" the man said, shaking his hair out of his eyes and looking suspiciously at Alex, who shrugged.

"Just messin' about." he said, slipping into a familiar role of sheepish London teen. "Want'd to see the Avengers, ya know. Can I have your autograph?" he added the last sentence with a hopeful look upwards.

The hands on his arms relaxed slightly. "You know these roofs well, then?" Clint asked, his tone so nice Alex was instantly on guard.

"Uh, yeah- I'm a local, actually."

He was stared at for a moment before Clint spun him round and twisted an arm up behind his back, an effective and painful hold which Alex could get out of if he really wanted but felt this would result in him getting knocked out, which wasn't really preferable. "What the fuck, man?" he spluttered instead.

"A local. With a London accent."

Alex paused for a moment. Damn, he was _well_ out of practise. "Ach, crap."

"What are you really doing up here, kid?"

"Er, I- there was just, some- a dare." he finished.

"Really."

Out of the corner of his eye, Alex saw Clint tap the comm unit in his ear (why hadn't he seen that before?) and frown. "Tony? That you?"

"Yeah." said the crackly voice Alex could only just hear. "You on the roof?"

"Yeah- about that, actually-"

"Do you, by any chance, see the boy that was meant to be helping us for the Eye? That criminal we're babysitting who Rodgers said has escaped out the bathroom window?"

"Yup." Clint's tone was grim as he twisted Alex's arm further up his back, causing him to press his lips together in pain. "Got him right here."

"Thanks. Bring him down, would you?"

"Will do."

A loud crackle, then silence.

Shit, thought Alex miserably.

"Better luck next time, kid." Barton told him, leading him over to the fire escape that ran up to the top of the building. "Get down there, now."

Alex took a step forwards, and in the split second while Barton's grip lessened as he stepped down he spun around and punched the man in the gut.

He felt a moment's remorse for punching his role model- but he'd started this escape, and had to see it through.

Back on the roof. Run to the edge- _no pausing- _jump! Land, knees bent, hunched slightly forwards. Take off running, one two three four one two three four-

"Ah, fuck it." he said to the arrow that pinned him by his shirt to the floor.

**First chapter of 'A Cruel, Hard World.' Equalling a total of 3,052 words (and 16640 characters, in case you wanted to know) and hopefully updated soon.**

**Please review, follow and favourite; it was confusing (what of my work isn't?) so feel free to ask questions or make suggestions or whatever.**

**Well, until next time.**

**9th July note; **

_It was large and gilded and the lock was chased with gold and clicked as he turned it- Rodgers waited outside, and he leaned against the cold wall and wondered again how the hell he got there._

Barton bit was changed. Embarrassing how many people picked up on that. Thanks!


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter two;**

Alex woke on the floor.

It was a hard metal floor, and from the various aches in his muscles he gathered he'd been lying there for a while, unconscious.

How did he...?

Ah.

He'd started to tear the arrow out of his shirt, adrenaline making his fingers clumsy, and then felt a snick as something pierced the fabric of his shirt and stabbed into his back; a moment of pain, then he was sliding down, unconscious.

Alex sighed. It was close, he thought. So close.

The room he was in had glass walls, enclosing from all sides with a thick steel door presenting the only way out of the room. Outside the glass walls Alex could see he was in a larger room, with a guard outside the wooden door and a row of chairs along the right wall. There was one large, gazed window in the outer room, eliciting from Alex a slight gasp as he viewed the magnificent sight of the whole of New York, spread out like a carpet of toys, little metallic beetles jolting along seams of grey and buildings like Lego blocks, colourful and tall and shadowed.

"I know, right?" a voice sounded from outside the glass room Alex was in and he turned, looking at Tony Stark standing outside, with a trademark smirk on his face. "Beautiful. I love to give my prisoners the best views possible."

"Hospitable of you," Alex said dryly, trying to figure out why he hadn't seen Stark in his initial scan of the room. He must've just come in, or something.

"Exactly! Most of the people in the same state you are somehow don't have the manners to comment on that. It may be something to do with the fact they're evil criminals and I've captured them, but I haven't quite figured it out yet."

"So... if I'm commenting on your hospitality, surely that means I'm not an evil criminal?"

Stark looked amused. "You don't think you should be in there?"

"Well, seeing as I'm innocent _and _your guest, then no, not really."

"Our guest who attempted to escape."

"I was exploring. Trying to see more of this lovely view, if you like."

"Exploring." The hint of laughter in Stark's eyes was extinguished. "Listen, kid. You may have some tricks up your sleeve but you're just a kid, a kid with some serious issues. And those issues make us enemies. I want you to know that we will never be friends, and every single Avenger in this tower considers you a criminal and will act as such when you try to escape again."

"I love how you say 'when', not 'if'." Alex smirked.

"The terrorist group you worked with, Eye, has killed and tortured so many you wouldn't believe it. Just because someone on the good side managed to make you turn traitor doesn't mean you are no longer responsible for the disgusting acts you obviously committed in that group."

Alex's tone grew cold. "I also love how you make wild assumptions and believe them to be true."

"What, you're saying I'm wrong?"

"I'm saying that you used to be my hero, because you never listened to authorities. I'm saying people always judged you without knowing you and you proved them wrong. I'm saying that maybe you should let me prove you wrong."

There was a moment of tense silence, and Alex reviewed his little speech as maybe too sappy.

But Stark stepped back, opened his arms wide and grinned. "Prove me wrong, then. Want to go to the kitchen?"

"Sure," he replied, grinning. Stark stepped forwards and disappeared behind the thick steel door. There was a small smashing sound, a long beep, a snap and then the door opened. Alex hurried out.

As he followed Stark out, he saw the door had a panel on it. It was all messed up and smashed- which explained the sounds- and a red light was beaming from the right corner. Stark saw him looking and shrugged. "I maybe wasn't supposed to let you out. And call me Tony, by the way."

ARA

The kitchen was full of something Alex hadn't seen in a long while; food.

He hadn't thought about it before but the sight of the magnificence caused his stomach to start aching something terrible. The last time he had eaten had been on the plane- wait, no, he'd watched the pilot eat, trussed up and sulking in the back seat- so, after he left MI6 head quarters- no, he'd punched Mrs Jones, of course he hadn't had food- well, before he'd gone to MI6- not even then; he'd thought of ordering a take away but the meagre 'allowance' MI6 gave him had recently been spent on clothes and wouldn't cover it.

All in all, it had been a long time since he'd eaten anything real. Alex pulled out a plate and began loading it with delicacies, while Tony put a pot of coffee on.

It was only when they were sitting down at the table, Tony with a cup of steaming coffee and Alex inhaling a plate of food that he realised how surreal this situation was. He- a criminal, a disgraced MI6 spy, a dismal schoolboy- eating with _Iron Man- _a genius billionaire playboy philanthropist_- _and he was- he was there! Woah. Wow.

His hatred for being deported to America ceased for a moment.

And came back in full entirety when Black Widow walked in, saw him, spun round and pulled out a gun.

"Hah, great." he muttered dismally, and stuffed the final half of a chocolate bar in his mouth lest he be taken away from the glorious objects.

"Relax, Nat," Tony said with a placating smile. "I let him out. It's fine."

The gun dropped, slightly. Alex let out a breath he didn't know he was holding.

"It's fine? You let him out?! So you didn't listen at all to the meeting we had about him, and what we decided?!"

"The Avengers had a meeting about me? Awesome." Alex grinned. Both occupants stared at him. "No, go on with your conversation, don't mind me..."

Tony turned back to the red haired woman. "The meeting? Oh, that meeting- the one I got to Angry Birds level 24 on?"

She glared some more.

Tony turned to Alex and grinned. "Alex, meet Natasha. You probably know her as Black Widow but she's fine with calling you Natasha."

"Tony." _Natasha _said through clenched teeth. "We agreed- _you _agreed- he would stay in that room until we needed him. He's a terrorist! What don't you understand about that?"

"Well, I didn't agree anything, because, I was, you know, playing Angry Birds." Tony said with a slight apologetic expression.

"A terrorist!"

Alex thought that this particular conversation, conducted in front of him and about him, even if it was by the Avengers, had gone on long enough. "Um, see, I'm not a terrorist. Terrorist _expert. _Here to help, an' all that, you know?"

Natasha stared at him. "How do you know so much about terrorists, especially _this group, _if you aren't one yourself?"

"Guess I'm special that way." he smirked.

Bruce Banner stumbled in (with so many celebrities in here it was hard to resist his natural fan boy instincts, but Alex was a spy so he could suffer... at least, a little longer...) and stole the coffee off Tony. "Got your formula," he mumbled to Stark before slumping down at the table next to Alex, and regarding him with the blurred, suspicious glare. "Hey, aren't you the kid we said...would stay... in the thingy?" he slurred.

"Nice to know someone was listening." Natasha snapped. "He is, but Stark took it upon himself to free him."

"I don't mind," Banner smiled. "'Twas a nice escape you almost pulled off, kid. You gotta remember to disable anyone who could run after you though next time you try, kay?"

"Don't help him!" Natasha said, and was ignored.

"Thanks..." Alex nodded cautiously, desperately trying to suppress fan-boy mode, which was struggling to take over. "I'll remember that. And, um, are you okay?"

"No." Bruce glared at Tony, who looked around in mock innocence. "_He _made me stay up all night trying to figure out some 'super important' formula which he needed me to figure out despite being the genius."

The said man shrugged innocently. "I was busy."

"Sleeping. For once."

"For once! Exactly! I never sleep. It was just that one time..."

"At which you passed out just before telling me I needed to finish the formula..."

"Well, I was trying to stay awake, but I think Natasha put sleeping draught in my coffee."

All eyes turned to Natasha, who, momentarily distracted from the Alex problem, put on a confused face. "Who, me?"

A pause.

"Banner told me to." she said quickly, pointing at Bruce.

"Clint told me to." came the instant retort.

There was a clatter in the air vents and a dusty figure dropped out, a bow and quiver of arrows slung over his shoulder and an indignant look in his eyes as Tony turned to glare at him. "I did not!" Barton protested. "But I definitely heard Bruce saying to Natasha that Tony looked really tired and saying she should do something about it."

"Traitor." Banner hissed. Natasha smirked.

"Don't think you're out of blame." Tony glared at Natasha. "You were the one who _listened _to Banner."

"He manipulated me. You know how good he is at that." Natasha protested.

"...good point. I will get revenge, Bruce." Tony promised.

"I got you the formula!"

"Which I would've got if you hadn't drugged me."

"You weren't even angry about it a few seconds ago!"

"I was dealing with our resident criminal."

"...I still got the formula."

"Fine. I'll let you off, just this once. _Never _make me sleep again." Tony threatened.

"I won't, but I doubt Pepper will make that promise."

"Oh, yeah. Pepper." Tony said glumly, settling his head in his hands. "Why me?"

The conversation then meandered into further mainly meaningless topics and Alex put his head down and continued eating.

(Watching the easy way they got along, the playful teasing, the strong bonds born of hardship was painful. He was left out, alone. Always was, always would be. And a pang of nostalgia had to be quashed when watching them; because he knew that hoping for things always made the eventual realisation worse.

He was tired of pain.

So, so tired.)

A while later, Thor came in.

Alex had seen the god only briefly, when Joe Byrne had pushed him into the room; he'd seen the man exit a few minutes after he entered, Alex remembered faintly. Then he'd made his escape and, you know, been knocked unconscious and everything so this was his first Real Live meeting with the famous Avenger.

Not that you needed to put the adjective 'famous' in front of Avenger because the word 'Avenger' was associated closely with 'famous' so it was taken for granted that the Avenger was famous because they all were and now this was getting confusing so Alex stopped.

Thor sat down at the table and smiled at him. "Hello, boy child!" he boomed. "I am Thor. It is nice meeting you."

A ripple of applause sounded round the table as conversation stopped to clap Thor. "We've been teaching him 'Midgardian' manners and he just passed the test." Tony whispered to a deafened Alex confidentially. "But we haven't got to the volume bit yet."

He nodded, still mystified. "So, who are you?!" Thor asked him.

Alex smiled.

He scraped his chair back, pushed down his hair with one hand, widened his smile and held out a hand to shake. "I'm Alex, official connoisseur of terrorists, impermanent supporter of Avengers and expert on a group I believe you have recently been affiliated with; the Eye. I'm confident it will be a delight working with you to fulfil this difficulty and I look forwards to it greatly."

He shook Thor's hand as he recited the speech he'd compiled, enjoying the awed respect on Thor's face and slightly incredulous ones on Banner's and Natasha's, and the smirk on Tony's. The feeling of satisfaction lasted for a precious second or too before Natasha stepped forwards and corrected him. "Thor, this is the criminal we're babysitting, who CIA said has to help us with the Eye but who we're sure will do nothing, and who recently tried to escape via rooftop. The one we had the meeting about."

Thor's expression cleared and he looked disdainfully at Alex. Alex's pride that the Avengers had had a meeting about him dissipated slightly as he realised it probably wasn't any good things.

He'd tried so hard on that speech, as well.

"I do not understand." Thor said. "Why is he out of the prison?"

"Tony let him out." Cue renewed glare.

Alex sighed, and finished his plate.

ARA

At one in the afternoon they were called down for a meeting on the Eye. Alex was pleased to receive a suitcase- he meant, trunk (had to get into American mindset)- full of his clothes, packed by some nice '6 agent who'd taken pity on him. He'd saved up long for those clothes, and spent ages rooting around in second hand shops for the best purchases.

The meeting started with a quick summary about the Eye.

"Well, obviously they're a terrorist group." Tony started. A glare from Natasha made him loose the joking tone and turn to business, which Alex wasn't pleased with. "Okay. They call themselves the Eye because they claim to see and know everything. They sell this information to anyone for the right price, from governments to fellow terrorist groups to rich kids wanting to know some illegal secrets just because they can. A tight knit but large group, their methods of extracting information are notoriously well known; the people who do it are famed for having no morals at all, killing, stealing, raping, blackmailing and torturing to get the information they need.

"We got involved because they started taking on supernatural aspects. Somehow, from somewhere, they got a formula that gives their members the power, for a few hours, to read other people's minds. This is limited to only surface thoughts and the length of time it works varies from person to person but it is extremely dangerous and effective. Everyone is going to the group, knowing that the information cannot be incorrect, as was a possibility in the past. So their business is growing and so is their boldness; they are committing more of those disgusting acts in board daylight and all around the world, but have recently been targeting America."

Which is the only reason you jumped in, Alex thought bitterly. He knew the group had developed a supernatural aspect quite a while ago, but the US had only started taking interest when it was their people being targeted, on their land; even if the head quarters were in America, as long as they themselves weren't being harmed the American government were fine with it. Probably even used the Eye themselves. Absolutely typical.

He said none of this aloud, and let none of it show on his face, but wished that someone in the room had mind reading powers like the Eye.

"Okay, so, Alex. What do you know?"

Alex took a deep breath and searched his memory for his time infiltrating the Eye. Various contacts had told him the methods he had learnt there were still the same.

"Okay. Um, so; they have this kind of hierarchy. It's like, in the middle there's this really close, small circle of people. Their identities are not known to anyone but each other; they could be anyone from the president to some hot singer to one of you guys. They basically take all the profits and deal with living arrangements for members and stuff. They don't do any legwork.

"Then there's the circle of leaders. Each had their own circle, who are the information gatherers. The information gatherers work in groups and report back to the leaders, who share the information with- oh yeah, and above the circle of leaders are this circle of, um, meeting arrangers I guess. The leaders give all the information they get to the meeting arrangers who, well, arrange meetings with people that need the information and stuff. Then below the leaders and meeting arrangers and information gatherers are the deal makers, who actually go to the meetings and sort out deals and stuff.

"Below the deal makers are the bodyguards, who most of the time guard the deal makers and sometimes act as brute force for the information gatherers when they need it; not that they do, most of the time. So, yeah." he finished lamely.

"Is that all you know?" Natasha pressed.

No, he knew a lot more. A few months undercover hadn't been just for that information. But it wasn't like he was going to pour out everything right now; he wanted to milk this mission, with all it's celebrities and good treatment and many escape opportunities for all it was worth, and that meant revealing little bits of information and intervals along the line; just when they thought he was useless he'd come out with a new piece of information, and keep stringing them along until he was done.

Of course, this meant more time in which the Eye would be free to do as they pleased, which was horrible acts against humanity.

After all he had been through, Alex somehow couldn't find himself caring much for innocent faceless people out there; nearly three years of spying had taught him to look out only for himself, form no attachments and do whatever benefited him.

(He'd come too far to get dragged down again.)

(Even if it was nice having someone who cared.)

(But what did he know about that?)

Natasha, maybe from experience, somehow understood what he thought and gave him a barely noticeable nod.

His respect for her intensified and disliking over the whole keep-him-locked-in-a-room matter evaporated, and with a sigh his inner fan-boy started fighting on yet another front.

These fan-boy analogies were really getting annoying now.

There was some small talk, then some important looking suited men (with the whole dark shades and black shoes thing) stood up and did a long boring speech with some long winded, complicated conclusions which made Alex wish he'd tried harder in his limited time at school so he could understand the long, annoying words frequently used; because despite his lovely little speech to Thor, his vocabulary was severely lacking when his schooling literally stopped at the age of fourteen.

It was a losing battle trying to keep up with everything and he was really tired, because somehow being knocked unconscious for a few hours didn't make up for sleeping, and the chair was really comfortable and no one was looking at him and his eyes were beginning to feel really heavy and _yes, _he knew it wasn't safe it _wasn't safe _he should really keep his eyes open because after all that was the whole point of spying, not to fall asleep in hostile locations (kinda) but, well, everything was blurry and muted and there was no point really staying awake if he couldn't

Couldn't

Ah, fuck it.

ARA

Conversation stopped for a moment as everyone turned to stare at the young man who had fallen asleep on the table.

The meeting consisted of some important CIA types, representatives from the government, a few guys from FBI, someone from the British Embassy (for some reason no one quite knew at the moment), quite a few from SHIELD and, of course, all of the Avengers.

And CIA's little protégée, Alex, who had fallen asleep.

The moment of tentative silence continued as everyone tried to say something about it in the most diplomatic manner possible.

No one quite found the right words and so slowly, awkwardly, the meeting moved on.

The CIA guys decided, with the help of the FBI guys, that they would organise a strike on an abandoned warehouse in which the Eye were said to be storing some Important Stuff. The British Embassy guy watched on confusedly, the representatives from the government did the same, the SHIELD guys looked to the Avengers and the Avengers snickered quietly to each-other because they knew something that No One Else Knew, So There.

It was that the abandoned warehouse said to store Important Stuff had been revealed to the good guys by a leak in the Eye, which was why they wanted to organise a strike on it. The Avengers knew that the leak had turned out to be a double crosser and was actually working for the Eye and feeding them false information. They'd accidentally murdered him a while back, while finding out that he was a double crosser, and because he was dead no one else knew he was a fake. So they were still organising a strike, and the Avengers languidly said they CBA to take part in it (the teenage slang had come from numerous fan messages, which had infected them all to say things first like OMG, then LOL, then WTF/WTH, and most recently CBA), and the CIA and FBI (having an extreme disdain for the fancy-pancy super hero types) had rapidly agreed, telling them they could have a week off.

The Avengers happily took the week off. SHIELD followed their lead, CIA and FBI organised the strike, everyone else was aloof to hide their doing-nothingness, Alex was asleep and so the meeting ended.

**Thanks for the reviews! Love you guys.**

**Two questions that seemed prominent, 1) before or after Scorpia Rising? I thought it would be obvious, Alex being sixteen years old and all; but after Scorpia Rising. You'll find out what happened with the Pleasure's and the Chinese and how Alex got to be 'owned' by MI6 and all about the supernatural terrorist group the Eye and why/how Alex is affiliated with them in time. Oh, and it also takes place after the Avengers, but before Iron Man 3, none of which events will happen in this story (other than maybe the panic attacks, but that is yet to be decided), in the sorta AU that is the Avengers living in the Stark tower, all comfortably and all real close and stuff. And the second; will I be abandoning this story after one chapter?**

**That, I think, is evident.**

**Just looked at the AR/A archive; this is the third story with a second chapter. On the third chapter it will be the first of it's kind, with three whole chapters, because I don't think anyone else is gonna update (even though most of the others are awesome. I think some of the authors have subscribed to this so if you have please, please update.)**

**Anyway.**

**Summer holidays in two weeks- I'll update then, maybe, as celebration. Review and follow and stuff. Thanks in advance.**

**(Because if you say thanks in advance then it's like you have to give it to them 'cause they've already given you the thanks.)**

**(It probably won't work but whatever.)**


	3. Chapter 3

Alex woke up on a cold, hard floor, with aches in his body and eyes still horribly tired.

(He really needed to stop doing this.)

He got up, stretched, and further examination revealed he was not in the room Tony had broken him out of; instead, he was in a nice looking guest room, with a soft bed on the right side that he went over to and slumped down on.

The room was a demure cream colour, with a rug on the floor and an emerald chandelier hanging from the panelled ceiling. The bed he was lying on had a duvet at the bottom all screwed up and creased. Alex deduced someone had probably bought him up to this room after he'd fallen asleep at the meeting and put him on the bed, and he'd fallen off it in his sleep, but unfortunately not onto the thick, fluffy rug but onto the floor, which explained the numerous aforementioned aches in his body.

Alex rubbed his eyes and stumbled to the wooden door, trying the handle to test if it was locked (it wasn't) and walking out. He came into a corridor lined with windows and doors, and realised with a sigh that he'd woken up prematurely for the sky was still dark with dusk and scattered with stars (hah alliteration). It was probably a nightmare, a problem that regularly had occurred in the past year or so that he'd gotten used to eventually; he was just glad he didn't remember this one.

Damn, he was tired.

He opened the first door which turned out to be a living room, with numerous Avengers slumped round on sofas watching a horror movie with cups of coffee in their hands.

The door swung shut behind him as he stood in one spot awkwardly, waiting till everyone noticed. "Uh...morning?" he greeted (unsure if it was morning yet).

He got a few mumbled 'morning's' back and then the attention was focused back on the evidently riveting horror movie.

He perched on the end of an empty armchair and stared at the 42 inch flat screen. The movie on it was something he hadn't seen before, and at the moment it depicted a young girl staggering backwards, watched by two men with bewildered expression, the girl with red eyes and a gaping mouth then falling backwards onto a pole which went right through her torso as easy as butter with a splatter of grey blood.

Alex winced.

The girl choked something out in another spray of grey blood then heaved herself off the pole, a hole in her stomach showing a slimy mess of grey entrails.

Huh, lots of grey. Reminded him of Blunt. Maybe she was a zombie.

She then lurched over to the two stunned men on the screen and proceeded to hungrily kiss one, pulling him to her with blood stained hands. The camera zoomed in and it became evident that the kiss was one that involved numerous grey spikes jutting from her lips and digging into his, and a tube from her throat into his which was making a slurping sound. The man had a dent which came from the tube going all the way down his throat into his stomach.

Eventually he shrivelled up and dropped down. The girl stepped back, licking the retracting spikes with a pleased expression on her face, examining the prune like corpse for a moment before reaching forwards, pushing a hand into his mouth and up (with a horribly satisfying crunching sound) and pulling out a mass of dripping scarlet brains, then stuffing them in her mouth, with bits of dark scarlet dribbling down her chin and adding some colour to her otherwise grey demeanour.

The other man had run off long ago.

The film ended and the scripts came rolling on, much to the relief of Alex, who had a bad taste in his mouth and a renewed dislike of horror movies.

The various Avengers stretched and finished their cups of coffee. "Good film." Bruce sighed happily. "When's the next one coming out?"

"Next week, actually." Tony said. "We should go see it in the cinema."

"Definitely." Clint agreed. "That was awesome."

"Mm, I don't know," Natasha said thoughtfully. "I mean, it left a lot of loose ends, didn't it?"

Tony shook his head at her. "That's why there is something called a sequel, Nat."

She looked faintly abashed. "Right. I knew that."

With a start, everyone seemed to properly notice Alex. "Hey, kid," Tony said. "Nice sleep?"

There were a few snickers as everyone recalled the important meeting incident. "Yeah," Clint smirked. "You shone a very good light on us and CIA with your professionalism."

"Yeah, whatever." he grumbled. "I was tired. It was boring. And it's not like I did it in front of someone important, like the president..." he trailed off uncomfortably, remembering a recent incident when the same thing had happened with the British prime minister.

"You didn't." Natasha said flatly, reading the expression on his face. He hesitated.

Prime minister wasn't the same as president, after all.

"No, I didn't." he gave a false smile that was meant to be reassuring.

"In front of the prime minister?" she said in shock.

He gaped at her. "How did you know?"

"I read faces well." she smirked.

Alex made a mental note of that.

"You fell asleep in a meeting with the prime minister?" Tony said, putting the pieces together and whistling lowly through his teeth. "Nice."

"It was almost as boring as the meeting we just had." Alex defended. "And I'd been awake forty eight hours straight."

"Why?" Bruce asked curiously.

It was on the tip of the tongue to say it was because of a mission, but Alex realised that that one occasion had been because of a party Tom had convinced him to go to.

(A few days before he said that maybe they shouldn't be friends any more.)

"Ah, um... it doesn't matter." he said hastily.

The knowing look in Natasha's eyes did nothing to make him any less embarrassed.

"So, did I miss anything important? At the meeting?" he clarified.

Smirks appeared on various faces as the Avengers sat back, looking pleased with themselves.

"We conned a week long holiday from CIA and FBI." Natasha informed Alex.

"Using some information that We Know and They Don't." Clint smirked.

"Because We Are Awesome and They Are Stuck Up Bigots." Tony added.

Alex nodded cautiously and decided it was best not to ask.

"Oh, and what time is it?"

Tony looked at his watch. "Three twenty five."

That just made him feel even more tired. "How comes you guys are up now? And watching-" he gestured hesitantly towards the television, as if afraid that any mention of the film would make them put it on again. "-that?"

A few uncomfortable looks, careful scratches, averted eyes. Tony said in a careless tone, with a darkness in his eyes that belied his words, "Ah, you know. Nightmares. Wakes us up a bit earlier then usual."

Well, that Alex could understand. But horror movies? That helped- how?

He said as much.

"It reminds us that things can always be worse." Tony told him, his voice tipping more towards the joking side of harshness. "Like, say, a grey chick sucking your guts out."

Oh.

Nice.

Maybe he'd try that sometime- not.

"What, you get nightmares too? 'Bout the people you killed, huh, kid?" someone said, a joking tone in their voice, but the room fell silent at the unintended implications of the words.

(He could never get away from it)

(The screams, the chokes, the bang)

(The inevitable)

(Fade)

(In their eyes)

(And her little face, so sweet and trusting, and the gun, so cold and desperate in his sweating hand)

He mumbled something about going back to bed and stumbled off.

ARA

Obviously, sleep was out of the question so Alex spent some time scouting out the areas he could get into- of which there were few, a designated space laid out for him which he couldn't get out of with all the locked doors and windows- and looking for any weapons. Just in case.

He soon realised why he was allowed such freedom around the tower, when around half an hour into his search he spotted a small movement out of the corner of his eye. Further examination showed minuscule cameras watching his every move. After the initial find, he began seeing them everywhere, and realised a search was no use and collapsed back onto his bed.

(he didn't sleep)

A while passed and he thought and lounged and excelled in this unusual relaxation. Maybe being property of CIA instead of MI6 was some good, after all.

Morning dawned. Nothing but the rise of the sun marked the start of the day, the streets of New York as busy as ever- but Alex was used to that; his last few missions had been long and weary, and spent in cities like NYC that never slept. He was also used to hunger, a gnawing wrenching feeding hunger that ate him inside out, and it was with relief that he discerned this mission would not be one in which he would suffer that.

In fact, he thought this mission to be remarkably easy and relaxing, especially for a first one in complete control of CIA. He didn't think he'd be tortured, almost no risk of getting killed, no going hungry or thirsty, probably no pain suffered; maybe he'd be able to enjoy himself a bit, once he lulled the Avengers into trusting him (and quelled his fan-boy instincts). Yes, every conversation seemed to bring up a choking mess of slithering black memories, but he'd dealt with that before. He _could _deal with it.

It was easy; watch and learn, kids. This is how you do it.

You think of the memory. (the bang, the crash, the thud of a body against the wall) Now think of the emotions that accompany it. (a ravaging guilt, an aching pain, self hatred) And now; you wipe those emotions away. You brush it clean, and when you think of the memory again (the bang, the crash, the thud of a body against the wall- a clean kill, precise. Dispensing any suspicion, very good, Alex) and you feel nothing. Nothing at all.

Each time you do this, your heart will learn. It will begin to do it automatically. Soon you won't feel anything at all, because your heart will be covered in ice and steel and rock and when you look closely, to check for cracks in the defences, you'll find it's not there at all.

Congratulations. You no longer have a heart.

Alex thought again.

(The girl, her sweet trusting face. The gun, cold and desperate in his sweating hands. The tremble of his fingers, the coldness on his spine, the thud as he realised what he had to do.)

Did he feel bad?

He had to save himself. If he didn't, then-

It would have all been for nothing.

It was to save myself, he thought.

I don't have a heart, he reminded himself.

He thought of the memory again (wide grey eyes, rimmed with thick black lashes, a thumb in her pouting mouth) and inch by inch, he forced a strangled smile onto his face, and he walked out of his room and into the kitchen were everyone was waiting and found he could look at them in the eye once more, for he no longer cared.

He had breakfast, slouched off, stared into a book and waited for there was a spark of an idea in his find, that was growing and whistling and feeding and he thought, and thought, and the fire burst up in a shower of ash and was alive and blazing.

So began the double mission; to help the Avengers with the Eye, and to make them trust him, reveal his innocent secrets, so morals would strangle them and they. Would. Help him. Because they were superheroes, and that's what superheroes did; by next month, he would be free.

And he had no qualms about manipulating them because- remember, kids? Lesson one- he didn't have a heart.

ARA

"Clint." Thor said, bored. "We shall play the game in which you paint evil ones red!"

Clint looked up from the paperwork Natasha was forcing him to complete, sighed, and thought it wouldn't hurt to have a little break. "Sure, big guy," he said, getting up. "Which game was it?"

"The one in which you paint the evil ones red." Thor informed him with a _you-really-are-dumb _expression on his face.

"Oh yeah..." Clint nodded. Paint evil ones red. The idea that teenagers liked to play video games that involved killing people had upset Thor so much they'd convinced him it wasn't actually killing them, it was painting them red. This meant that they could play all the really gory games in which the 'evil ones' burst into piles of red gooey liquids but not any others, where they died with a bullet whole or an arrow in their eyes since that wasn't painting them red. Of course, they could also play a child's painting game, which Tony had got for Thor as a mock birthday present (they were officially treating the first of January as Thor's birthday since the concept was foreign- in Earth terms, anyway- to the thunder god) because Tony didn't get anyone anything but mock up presents- apart from Pepper, but she had to buy her own, which kinda put a downer on the thing.

Clint shook himself from his thoughts and remembered that Tony had given all the gory games away to some poor orphanage kids who'd come round for a day. They'd been delighted, everyone else had disapproved, yadda yadda yadda (though Clint thought it had been a good idea) and they still hadn't restocked that particular pile.

Clint decided on Fruit Ninja as a suitable game. However, it was only fun on a crowded train on a dim smartphone, so both men bored of it quickly. Thor wandered away to eat something, but all Clint had to do was paperwork (he should really finish it) and now he wanted to play a video game, so he wandered the tower looking for anyone willing to join in.

Natasha told him he should finish paperwork. He hurriedly said he'd get right on it and scrambled out of the room.

Pepper he didn't know well enough to ask and Tony was working on something Immensley Important (and he was slightly scared to go in there after hearing the suspicious sounding bangs and faded lights of an explosion and shouts of 'I'm okay! I'm okay!')

Bruce was asleep. Clint was even more scared of waking him up then disturbing Tony, especially after his sleepless night's working on Stark's formula- last time someone had, he'd transformed into the Hulk and smashed his bed on the person's head.

Good thing it was Thor, whose skin was so thick (both literally and metaphorically) the said bed managed not to hurt it, much.

So that left no one.

Well, not no one- there was that kid. Clint wouldn't normally play with children, but he had almost escaped from Clint, and the respect that earned was magnified by the boy's audacity to fall asleep in front of everyone at the meeting- and besides, he was a teenager, and everyone knew that teenage males lived on video games.

He checked the cameras (unaware that Alex knew about them) and deduced the boy was in his room.

He knocked once, swung into the room, where Alex was laying on his bed reading a book entitled 'FUCK THEM ALL' in bold red letters circled in black with viscous fake blood stains and bullet holes on the front cover. "Nice book," he commented. Alex looked up, raised a hand. "Um, anyway, you want to go play a video game?"

Alex stared at him curiously. "Why?"

"Well, because there's no one else to play with. And if I don't, I have to do paperwork. Which I don't want to do."

The boy stared at him for a moment longer before turning back to his book. "No, thanks." he said.

Then he remembered The Idea. This would be a perfect way to get closer to this particular Avenger. After all, how else better to bond then if not over video games? "Actually, okay."

He folded the top corner to mark his page, closed the book, and followed Clint into the living room for a quick game of Assassin's Creed, which turned into Fifa 11, which turned into Need For Speed, and then a long campaign against eachother in all genres of video games, most of which Alex won.

Because he was just awesome that way.

ARA

Bruce awoke.

His stomach- and a glance at the clock- deduced it was dinner, so he stretched, yawned, and went into the living room for everyone else to enter so they could decide whether to plague one of the able-to-cook people in the tower until they cooked dinner, or to order a take away, and then cope with the strenous descision of which take away to order from, which would inevitably spark an argument and leave Bruce crawling silently away in the chaos to phone the nearest pizza place.

He wasn't the first person in the living room. Clint and that kid- what was his name? Oh yeah, Alex- were staring intently at the screen, controllers in their hands, jaws clenched with determination and the flickering lights on screen reflected in their eyes.

A thundering ripple of music played and both males sat back, wiping a head across their foreheads and dropping the controllers onto their laps, grinning at each other. "One hundred and fifty one games to me, a hundred and forty nine to you." the teenager smirked, making Bruce wonder how long they'd been playing to achieve that number of games.

"We agreed that one didn't count!" Clint protested. "One fifty to both of us. A draw."

"Fine." Alex shrugged. "Makes no difference to me- I'm gonna win anyway."

"You are not." Clint snarled.

Bruce felt the need to alert them of his presence, and coughed.

Both turned to look at him. "Hey, Bruce!" Clint grinned. "Finally up? You wanna play the decider with Alex?"

Bruce narrowed his eyes. Clint was only this cheerful when he was up to something.

"What about... Grand Theft Auto. 3."

Bruce realised what he was up to. Because he sucked at most video games, was mediocre at a few, and there was one he completely excelled at; Grand Theft Auto 3. Not even 1 or 2 or 4, but 3. No one could beat him, or his high score, and for some reason it was the only one he was good at.

"For the decider?" he asked. Alex and Clint nodded. He shrugged and agreed.

With a solemnity, GTA3 was entered into the PS3. A controller was handed to Bruce, Alex picked up his.

The game started.

Bruce won; Alex said it didn't mean Clint had won it, because Bruce had played the game; so started another campaign between all three, and Bruce and Clint found themselves enjoying the company of Alex, enjoying his witty sarcasm and quick fingers and dramatic expressions.

Alex smiled, inside, and gave the tiniest evil little laugh because he felt so amazingly evil it was surprising he hadn't turned bad earlier.

**And I'll leave you with that end comment.**

**(Which insinuates that Alex turned evil a long while ago. Or turned bad and then good again. And it is meant to add suspense to the story. I'm just explaining it so you're fully aware that the story was just added to in terms of suspense.)**

**Turns out you didn't need to wait until summer holidays for a chapter, because I was bored (and spent a couple of hours typing 'qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm' into Google and looking at the first link- an Urban Dictionary definition- '**_**A phenomena that happens to a computer's keyboard when a human being is bored to death...'**_**and then getting amazed because it was actually true, and trying out the other combinations- ' qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmmnbvcxzlkjhgfdsapoiuytre wq' etc.- and being astounded and no longer bored when Urban Dictionary had similar accurate definitions, and anyone whose been bored on the computer before totally knows they've tried this) so because I was bored did the thing in brackets before realising I might as well update.**

**The bit after the bit in brackets was meant to be included in the brackets but it got too confusing.**

**Okay, this is really confusing, let's start this A/N again;**

**I have updated ahead of schedule, making this a beautiful total of three chapters and yes, the only one of it's kind in the genre. I expect many reviews of congratulations and Facades That Hide Us readers- don't be mad- next chapter is in the works I **_**promise. **_

**Hopefully.**

**Sorry to further this disgustingly long A/N anymore than it already is, but;**

**May Warwick (guest); you will see about the Tony thing next chapter.**

**From now on, Alex is going to be a lot more... ruthless. You'll see a cruel side to him that I didn't know was there before, which may account for the sudden change in character mid chapter. I'm not sure it's that noticeable but if you do notice it, that's the reason, so please don't flame- suggestions on how I could make it better?**

**And in other news; despite being non-religious, my family is Muslim. So, yes, we are fasting. All month. And, yes, it is summer, and one of those rare warm days in England when it is allowable to have barbecues or sit typing in the garden. Which, yes, means my neighbours are having a barbecue next door and I am sitting hungrily and typing and looking anxiously at the clock, and- three more hours till I can eat. Sigh.**


	4. Chapter 4

The living room door swung open with a crash.

Bruce and Clint looked up from their Fifa 11 game, pausing it at the intrusion. Alex would've too, except that it was 3AM in British time and he was still jet lagged from the travel across the time zones and was so soundly asleep. In the doorway stood a terrifying silhouette of a seemingly crazed man; billowing, raggedy clothes, bloodshot eyes, disturbing dark circles etched on unhealthy pale skin from sleepless nights; a pencil tucked behind one ear, a metal breastplate from Iron Man strapped around his chest, a wireless mouse clenched firmly in one hand and a sheaf of blueprints and encoded lists in the other. The man's eyes roved the room and landed on the sleeping form of Alex. "Him!" came out the grunt through clenched teeth as he staggered a few steps over to the armchair and sank down. "Nothing! There is nothing!"

"Um. Tony." Clint said cautiously to his friend. "It might help if you told us... what the hell you're talking about?"

"Him." came the growl again. "The whole night, I spent! No sightings, nothing at all. Nothing on any of the databases, any of the records anywhere- criminal, school, Starbucks- nowhere! A sighting from a CCTV camera two years ago near the CIA headquarters showed up on the face recognition scans, but it didn't even look like him!"

"Tony," Bruce said, with the same cautious tone as Clint. "We still don't know what you're talking about."

"Across the whole of America, not a single thing!" Tony shouted in a half desperate, half angry voice. The two mystified men looked at each other with raised eyebrows, both scooting away from Stark and carefully turning off the screen to the paused game, in case such a thing might provoke more rage.

"Deep breaths, Tony."

A pause in the rant.

"Good dog. Now tell us what happened."

"Ok." Tony took a deep breath, and it was further testament to his sleepless state that he didn't retort to the dog insult. "So. When he first came, I naturally did a check on him."

"I assume by 'him' you're talking about Alex." Clint interrupted. Tony nodded.

"It came up with nothing, but I didn't think there was anything wrong with that. Of course they'd wiped the records of someone like him- anyone connected with CIA is automatically extinguished. My special programs detected nothing but still I wasn't that concerned- maybe because he was a high profile criminal they'd taken care to manually wipe his traces. It didn't matter. So I was going to look into it myself when Fury assigned me this horribly big project on the Helicarrier. And I finished it maybe a few hours ago. And _then _I got onto the Alex case. Ok. So. I searched everything. I searched deleted files, semi deleted files, files under so much security they weren't even there, files from CIA, FBI, the cops- anything and everything. And. There. Is. Nothing. Nothing. I have spent this whole night searching everything- using every piece of face recognition and body heat software I have- and there is nothing! It's not even possible! There's not a cyber hole where he should have been- it's literally like he doesn't exist."

Both men took the information with a slight frown and Alex stirred a little in his sleep.

"Um, Tony- have you tried different countries? You said you searched everything America has- what if he's from somewhere else?"

"I thought of that." Tony said in a dismissive tone. "But 1) he has a Texan accent, 2) he's working for CIA, which are obviously in America so he must be American and 3) CIA said he was American. We wouldn't use him otherwise."

"Tony." Bruce said. "Since when did CIA tell the truth? And since when did you believe that CIA told the truth?"

Tony hesitated. "There's still the accent..."

"I don't know." Clint said uncertainly. "On the roof he did a perfect London accent. I think he's faking the Texan one- he definitely can- because CIA told him too or some other shit."

Tony slumped for a second before bursting out of his seat and running for the door.

"That was interesting." Clint said to Bruce, who nodded and looked at Alex.

"Seems our little friend is hiding a lot of secrets."

"That sounded so cliché-y evil."

Bruce shrugged. "I'm a cliché-y evilly kinda guy. I mean, my other personality is a giant green monster who likes killing and stomping on things."

"Touché." Clint nodded. "Wanna finish the Fifa game?"

"Sure." Bruce said, reaching forwards to turn the screen on when Tony burst in, holding the latest Stark tablet.

He sat down on the armchair and began tapping it furiously, numerous holograms appearing around him, too intricate for Clint to think about and too unusual for Bruce to focus on. "Ok..." Tony muttered. "I'll try the English speaking countries first. Canada..." A map appeared in front of him in the shape on Canada, blue lines flashing across it. "No hits. New Zealand?" the map changed. "Nope. Australia...no...UK..." A map of UK appeared and a blue line barely flashed across it before numerous red dots were blinking up in various places. "He's from UK." Tony smirked at everyone, who walked forwards to examine everything with a closer interest.

Tony zoomed in on the hits. "Right. He used to go to Brookland Comprehensive, but was mysteriously erased from records last year...ok, let's look at his school reports." A bunch of numerous files came up. Tony highlighted them all. "Jarvis, pick out important and recurring information, would you?"

"Certainly, sir." came the automatic voice. A new file opened up. Tony swivelled the tablet screen round to show Clint and Barton.

"Ok. So...quiet and studious boy, not many friends- though especially close with some kid called Tom- hey, Jarvis, get his file would you?- though until fourteen he was quite popular... then the teachers note rumours come up, about him being a druggie and involved in gangs and such. He missed a lot of school. I assume this is where he starts getting involved in the stuff that made him a criminal. Ok, so...he turns up with injuries, but his guardian doesn't seem to be abusing him- guardian? Oh, parents dead when he was young, uncle at fourteen- maybe that accounts for him getting involved with the wrong crowd, with his uncle dead... and his grades sharply dropping, then at sixteen- around now- someone's made an effort to override the system and completely wipe him."

Tony closed the file and sat back, exchanging looks with his companions. "Looks like there's a lot more to this boy then we thought."

A beeping sound suddenly started coming from his tablet. Tony leaned in, brow furrowed, and started reading something. His eyebrows rose steadily higher with each line read.

"Tony? What is it?" Clint asked curiously.

"Wow." Tony whistled through his teeth, appearing impressed. "Ok, get this. He's got a massive file from MI6. For some reason, he did something bad enough to get _them _involved."

Alex's eyelids flickered. He woke up in a start, then settled down- what where they talking about?

No one noticed.

"So he's in trouble with MI6- ok, I think he starts getting involved with terrorist groups. That's how he gets all his knowledge. MI6 catch him, start using him with what he knows then give him over to America so he can help us. So that explains why he wants to run away; to join his terrorist friends."

Clint whistled lowly. "Wow. A Brit, young terrorist, druggie- complete opposite of what I thought of him five minutes ago."

"Tell me about it." Tony agreed. "Look, here's his file-" then he swore. "Damn it. They've got everything on paper in the fucking '6 headquarters, in England. Only thing available on the MI6 database is the basics."

"Read them out, then." Bruce said impatiently.

Alex's fist clenched. Wait, he told himself. There's nothing that bad.

"Ok. Name: Alex Rider. Rider...that sound familiar to anyone? No? Ok... Age: 16. Physical Description: Well built, fair hair and skin, brown eyes. Hm- he's got the tan from somewhere. Current Status: CIA property. Property? I'm not sure I like the sound of that." Tony said, a dangerous glint in his eye, then shook it off; this was a criminal, after all. "Relatives: Parents, John and Helen Rider (DECEASED) Uncle, Ian Rider (DECEASED) Guardian, Jack Starbright (DECEASED) Foster Family, the Pleasure's (NOT AVAILABLE; AMERICAN CITIZENS). And... that's it."

"American citizens? Look up the Pleasure's, Tony."

"Ok, one sec...the Pleasure's. Sabina Pleasure, formerly British resident- which I guess is how she met Alex- now sixteen years old. Edward and Liz Pleasure are the parents- Edward is a reporter. They filed an application to adopt Alex when he was fifteen, where accepted- he lived with them in America for around a month, before FBI sources say there was an argument and Alex was sent back to England. I guess they must have found out about some of his terrorist involvement and then sent him back to England, where MI6 finally picked him up and started using him."

Clint leant back, looking at Alex. "And so the enigma is revealed." he said softly. "And I'm not sure I like it."

Alex opened his eyes, stood up. He felt a kind of shivering cold all over, threads of betrayal which made no sense- no one had betrayed him, because there was nothing to betray. He was the one planning to deceive them, after all. "You know nothing." he hissed at them all, almost laughing at their shocked faces. "You jump to conclusions which are completely wrong. These lies you've woven from bare fact can't be further from the truth. And I'd appreciate it if you _asked me _before spying!"

He stormed out of the room.

.

.

Alex wasn't really upset about Tony hacking into his files. After all, it was T_ony Stark. _He was kinda impressed at the amount of information found- and at least he didn't have to put on that annoying Texan accent every second of the day because there was no need any more.

Even the conclusions they'd jumped to weren't massively off scale. A few more bits of info and he was sure they'd get much closer; they were working with what they knew, he couldn't exactly blame them for that. And anyway, what did he care what they thought? This was just a mission, it'd be over soon, he could move on. Sure, they were the Avengers. Sure, maybe he'd fostered a tiny little minuscule bit of hope that they might- that they might- but it _didn't matter. _They couldn't or wouldn't and he. Didn't. Care.

And that totally explained why he'd stormed out of the room.

He contemplated going back in there and seeing what they did when he walked in- or going up and eavesdropping to see what they were saying- or- wait, eavesdropping? Awesome idea.

Alex crept up to the closed door of the room he'd just left, crouching down and putting his ear cautiously against the crack. "-don't know." Tony was saying. "We could be wrong about the terrorist thing. Maybe he's, I dunno, working against them. Or something."

Alex dared a smile.

"Nah." Clint disagreed. "He was definitely involved with terrorists. I mean, why else would MI6 get him? How else would he get his knowledge?"

"He could've been working for MI6." Bruce pointed out reasonably. "And that's how he got his knowledge; by working for MI6 _against _the terrorists." See how close they were?

"Yeah, but then why was he treated as a criminal? He's obviously done something wrong- and anyway, he's too young to work for MI6." Tony disagreed.

"Oh yeah, age. Good point." Clint said glumly. "Shame. I was almost beginning to like the kid, before we dug up all this dirt about him."

For _fuck's sake. _

"Same here." he heard Bruce say. "Wonder where he's gone?"

"One sec, I'll check the cameras." Tony said.

Alex swore under his breath and ran from the door, but not before he heard Tony saying; "Alex, we know you're there. Come back in."

Well, this was embarrassing.

What did he have to lose? Alex walked into the room, glaring at anyone who dared to meet his eyes, and dropped into the as of yet unoccupied sofa.

An awkward tension hung around the room.

"So, Alex." Clint said conversationally, then trailed off into silence when every eye on the room landed on him with an alarming intensity.

A few minutes passed, as everyone sat doing nothing and waiting for someone else to say something.

"Are you a terrorist?" Tony eventually asked, just for something to say. Alex looked relieved someone had finally broken the silence.

"No." he said. "Which means everything you said was wrong. Which tells you that you shouldn't jump to assumptions. Which tells me you are all idiots."

Clint winced at that. "Um, sorry. I think?"

"Apology accepted." Alex said glumly.

"Alex." Bruce said. "You said to ask you about things. Tell us, then; why were you involved with MI6? If it wasn't for being a terrorist?"

"I said you should ask, but I didn't say I'd answer. And I only said that because it'd be preferable to just making stuff up about me. I don't want you to actually ask." Alex confessed.

"Nonetheless, we'd like to know." Bruce said patiently.

Alex shrugged. "Well, you were right. Kind of. What you said... after. I was working for them."

"At sixteen?"

"Don't ask me how their minds work. They're all bat-shit crazy, here and in UK and Australia. Crazy and paranoid and greedy for power."

"So how comes they told us you're a criminal?"

Alex hesitated, then the thought he'd had before came back to him; really, what did he have to lose? "I ran away." he admitted. "I didn't want to work for them any more, they wanted to keep me, so I ran away. And since I was deemed '6 property running away counted as stealing government supplies, which is a criminal offence, so by default I'm a criminal."

"So that's why it said CIA property on your file." Tony said lowly, fists slightly clenched. "Because '6 gave you to America and now you're their property. And you're a criminal for trying to escape."

Alex smiled, sat up excitedly and clapped. "Well done! And that wasn't so hard, was it?"

Bruce looked ashen. "We have to do something about it. It isn't right."

Alex shrugged. "I would suggest letting me escape."

"No." All three said instantly. "Running away from your troubles isn't going to help."

"We're tasked with looking after you; we can't betray CIA's trust and potentially start of something big."

"You still need to help with the Eye."

"If we let you escape you're just going to get caught again."

"And you'll be on the run for the rest of your life."

"We have to sort this out through official channels-"

"OK!" Alex shouted. "Stop! I get it. You aren't going to let me escape. It's back to me vs. you."

"Alex, there are-"

"Is nothing you can do." Alex interrupted. "It's A Cruel Hard World."

Everyone suddenly swung round their heads to stare at him. Thunder boomed, despite the sunny day. The window swung open and then banged shut with a clang.

"What?" said Alex.

"Nothing." came the reply.

"Fine." he shrugged. "Ok. Let's finish this thing with the Eye, and then we can sort out everything, yeah? And you can stop treating me like a criminal."

"Ok." They agreed.

"Want to finish that game on Fifa?"

"Sure." he shrugged, and they turned on the screen.

_Alex Riderr Rider Alex Alex Rider Alex Riderr Rider Alex Alex Rider Alex Riderr Rider Alex Alex Rider Alex Riderr Rider Alex Alex Rider Alex Riderr Rider Alex Alex Rider etc., etc. _

"Right." Steve said, standing at the front of the room and facing the rest of the Avengers (plus Alex).

Tony, Clint and Bruce had given the others the run down on what they'd found out that morning. Thor didn't understand much, Steve was suitably shocked, betrayed and outraged, Natasha immediately phoned her '6 contacts and found from them that what Alex said was true- he did work for '6, or used to, and many times had been seen attempting to run away- and he was a legend in the company. When she'd asked why, they'd informed her the information was so highly classified it would be treason to share any of it with her, regrettably; but if she was meant to be 'babysitting' him, never to underestimate the boy. That mistake had been made many times by them, resulting in some unspeakable catastrophes and world wide scandals.

They'd all agreed to finish the mission with the Eye and take it from there. Under no circumstances was Alex allowed to go out of the tower without supervision. He'd agreed to that and so life continued.

(He'd scoffed mentally at their naïvety. Just because they knew some of his secrets didn't been he wasn't above _lying _to them. First opportunity he got, he was out of here.)

Now was the monthly session of official Avengers team bonding. Alex was sitting in, none of them allowed to skip the session to guard him, and so Steve Rodgers a.k.a Captain America proceeded with the team bonding.

This would be interesting.

**...And chapter four. J'ai fini. Finally.**

**Um, so. Readers of FTHU will know that in that story, Alex's life is taking a turn for the better (kind of.) Same goes for this one. A few chapters from here are just gonna be Alex bonding, interacting more with the Avengers, both sides learning more about each other, etc. Then there's gonna be an abrupt plot twist I've been planning since I first thought of this story, which is so brilliant I'm already smiling in anticipation.**

**Ok, it's not that brilliant. But I still can't wait to ride it.**

**And the reviews for last chapter; most of you didn't like the idea of a cruel Alex. The rest wanted him _more _cruel. I'm compromising and going for harsh. I mean, he's done things in the past that are... really bad. You'll see. But the Avengers are changing him- for the better. Some things will pop up which will make him really guilty, occasions when he was actually the bad guy- but now, he's good. A bit. Kind of. It's- complicated. **

**And the support for fasting, that was so sweet of you guys. Thanks!**

**Heard about the Geek Week coming up in August on Youtube? If it's better than Comedy Week, that's good. A week with videos...about my kind... yay!**

**Oh, and- can we try and hit 100 reviews? Thanks!**


	5. THE DREADED AN

**Hey, I said I would never give up this story. I said I had some amazing ideas. I said I think this would go a long way.**

**Guess what? I lied. A lot of people do it. I did. **

**So... yeah. Guess that's all there is to it. This genre must be cursed or something; it probably is. **

**I have just suffered a great personal loss- oh wait, I haven't. I'm lying again. But the sympathy you'd feel if that was true; extend it to this situation, and then you won't feel so bad.**

**I'll admit, I only decided this three seconds ago. Staring a blank screen always gets to me and before I knew it I was writing this. Most likely, a few months down the line I'll decide I really liked this story and I'll pick it up again, with hopefully a better backstory and plot and everything. For now;**

**Here's what's happening. I'm deleting this story tomorrow. You have until then to send me as many nasty, scathing reviews as you can. Then I'll delete it. If I put it up again, it will be under the same name, so watch this space. **

**I will reply to each and every one of your reviews. I anticipate a lot so;**

**If I send you the number '1' it means 'fuck off'.**

**If I send you '2' it means 'thank you'.**

**If I send you '3' it means 'I really don't care'.**

**If I send you '4' it means 'sorry.'**

**The above four will probably answer most reviews (I anticipate lots of '1's) but if they don't I might add something, or if your review was especially nice/mean. **

**So. Yeah.**

**Readers of Facades That Hide Us; I will never quit ****_that _****story, I swear. Now you know me as a liar, obviously, but FTHU is different. I have a plan out for that story, a whole fricking five page plan and I put ****_blood _****into it, man. This one was just an idea, I guess. Maybe when I have time or the inclination to flesh it out I'll do that, but for now- KABOOM.**

**(And the next chapter for FTHU is coming out tomorrow.)**

**I would apologise, but every single one of you (apart from A. Hi, A!) is a stranger, so to be honest I don't care. So get reviewing with those nasty words! Can't wait to reply! And if you're feeling especially vindictive review as a guest; I'll put my review in advance here, fuck you all, guests!**

**Thanks in advance for any support.**

**And one last thing; anyone want to adopt? 'Cause if you do, that'd be great. PM me, yeah?**

**Bye.**


	6. THE FINAL DREADED AN And Chapter 1 Draft

**Hi.**

**Firstly; I'm kinda disappointed. ****_Not a single one _****of the reviews was mean. It was horrible! I didn't get to use 1 even once- or even 3! And it's weird; not a single one of the authors who put their stories on hiatus or delete them or whatever haven't got flames, from what I've seen- and I really wanted some as well! Joking. That was so sweet of you guys to be so supportive. Thanks for everything. **

**A lot of you said the previous A/N was entertaining, so thanks. I tried. I personally thought it was more cruel than anything- and actually, some of you did say that- but there you go.**

**Secondly; great news. Maybe this genre isn't ****_completely _****cursed. This story is being adopted! By **ObsessivelyOdd, **a great author who has written many Alex Rider fics, and any of you who have read them will agree that he/she is an amazing choice. I'm really honoured they're continuing this story. So you can go over and follow them, or watch that space- it's not up yet, but will soon be I believe- or watch this genre. It is going to be amazing. **

**And the thousands of PM conversations with you guys the last A/N stemmed has convinced me not to delete this story; the summary will change when I post this, but I want to keep all your lovely reviews (and it's good to have two stories under my name with more than 100 reviews each) and also it adds one more to this genre, so hopefully (though unlikely) someone else will write a fic. **

**That's it, I guess. Thanks for everything. I might miss this story. Probably not, since it's being continued. But I'll miss you guys. Actually, probably not, since 3/4 are also fans of FTHU (which will be updated soon, I promise). And that concludes this (pitiful specimen of a) story. **

**Um.**

**So.**

_**Around two months later...**_

**I was hunting through old fanfictions lying dusty and uncompleted in my only-just-recovered USB stick, and I found THIS: Um, I mean, the first chapter to this story which I lost so had to start again. It's a really nice, snarky start which I miss so I thought it would be a shame to delete it so I'm putting it up here. Many thanks as always to ObsessivelyOdd to continuing and this is just something, that, um, yeah. I don't even know why I'm posting it.  
**

**Remainder; this is the FIRST chapter. It does not continue. I was gonna post it but lost my USB stick so had to write it again, whic is where this first chapter stemmed.**

**Here ya go;**

"-Mr Barton, Mr Stark." Joe Byrne greeted the Avengers, standing stiffly in the Stark Tower with a black suit on and the notorious blank expression of spies- he was, after all, deputy head of CIA.  
"Please, call me Tony." smiled Tony. Joe inclined his head, but made no offer to share his own first name with them. Tony flicked a little sideways glance to the others but only Natasha met it with one of her own; apparently they two were the only ones in the room in the Avengers team capable of noting the political implications beneath every word and action.

Tony led them to the dining table (a new one, all modern glass and metal instead of the old oak thing which had clashed so badly with the room's sleek look) and sat down. They began dinner- a roast turkey and potatoes with some vegetable in a white sauce- and started the fine art of small talk, a tiring process that after a lifetime of doing seemed to physically drill into Tony's skull yet still evaded comprehension by his fatigued mind.

How long had it been since he'd last slept?

Pfft, a few days or something. He could go longer, had gone longer. Wasn't tired at all. The white spots hovering suspiciously at the side of his eyes and black flashes across his vision when he moved to fast were... um... of no matter. Completely irrelevant.

"-right, Tony?" someone was saying.  
"Absolutely." he agreed instantly, then frowned. "What are we talking about?"  
Bruce turned a worried gaze on him, which he ignored, and Joe (it didn't matter if he said to call him by his first name or not, because Tony was Tony fricking Stark and called people what he wanted) looked at him coolly. "That the stock shares have been-"  
Ugh, this was so boring.  
Why was he here again?  
Gah, he just wanted to put his head down and fall asleep...  
"Tony! What the fu- I mean, what's wrong with you?" Clint shouted at him. Tony glared at him blearily and opened his mouth to retort with a number of insults crowding eagerly for release.

Right. Joe Byrne. CIA guy. No bad language, Tony. Good boy.

He shut it again, and shrugged in answer to Clint's question. Clint started getting annoyed. He opened his mouth, then seemed to go through the same thought process Tony had with a quick glance at Joe, and shut it again.

There was an awkward moment thick with unsaid words and no one daring to meet each-others eyes, broken by the ring tone of Joe's phone. "Can I take this?" he asked politely, and put it to his ear without hearing the answer. Tony couldn't find it in him to be offended- he was just too god-damn tired. "Hello? Byrne speaking. Yes. You have him? Really?... Finished all the necessary checks... you're sure?... well, be careful, you know what he's like...NO! Either he's within my sight or- actually, that's a good idea. Let me put you on hold for a minute." He turned back to the now curious Avengers. "I'm sorry." he said formally. "But the matter that I came here to ask you about has now been resolved. The villain has been caught, but unfortunately I know of nowhere safe enough to hold him. I want to ask a huge favour of you and have you guard him."

Looks were exchanged, all of them skilled enough not to reveal any surprise. Natasha quickly turned on business mode. "What's in it for us?"  
"I understand you have recently been tackling the terrorist group SCORPIA." No beating around the bush with this guy, Tony thought to himself miserably. Straight in with the info, boom boom boom, do what we want, the end. "This criminal is actually a turned MI6 operative, and in his time at MI6 succeeded in almost finishing the group, causing massive harm to them and killing the main leaders. Unfortunately, something happened to make him turn sides; he had come to live in America, and after a year he reverted to the SCORPIA organisation and bought them back up to full strength. Informants tell us that one month ago, SCORPIA turned on him and attempted to kill him- he went on a murdering rampage, killing twenty three people and seriously injuring another seventy two, which I'm sure you've heard of on the news," they had "And has since been on the run from every single person in America, good or bad. He's been captured twice by us and once by SCORPIA, and has escaped every time; the only option I see left, now we have him in custody, is having full time guards on him, which I want to be you. The thing that you get it that he can provide intelligence on SCORPIA, which will potentially help enormously."

Tony sat still at the sudden onslaught of information, because wow, here he was expecting just a polite politcal dinner but how could he be so foolish? Of course they wanted something. And of course he couldn't do what they asked- more work, guarding would definitely be a pain, and he didn't want to babysit some mad criminal! The man probably wouldn't give up information about SCORPIA without torture, and no way in hell was he gonna torture anyone. Not after he'd experienced it for himself.

He held back a shiver at the implications of the thought.

His fellow Avengers had been conducting a silent conversation with meaningful looks and slight whispers, then eventually turned to him, "Your call, Tony. It's your tower."  
They seriously thought he was going to agree? He wasn't that stupid. "Sure." he grinned at Joe. "We'll do it. No need to worry, Joey boy."  
Joe gave a barely noticeable wince at the name and nodded. "Excellent." He turned back to the phone. "Yes, Stark Tower...five minutes? Yes, that's fine... bring him straight up."

He slipped the phone back into the pocket and turned back to the Avengers with the air of someone waiting for something.

Tony sighed. He could literally feel all those concerned gazes drilling into his back- fine! Okay! Second the criminal was secured, he'd go to sleep.

The doors opened. Three men in police uniform came in, dragging between them a boy in handcuffs. "This is Alex Rider." Joe introduced. "Infamous criminal."  
A moment of silence. The boy gazed at them, looking drunk as he swayed slightly on his feet, dull blue eyes in a face of bruises. "What the hell?" Tony said. "He's a kid!"  
"Nevertheless, a criminal. I trust you to hold to our deal. Fury knows about this; contact him for more information."

Joe stood, and strode out. The stone faced police dropped the boy and followed him, abandoning the Avengers with their new prisoner. Because that had gone so well last time.

Bastards, the lot of them.

Tony walked up to the boy cautiously, who was sitting slumped on the floor with his eyes half shut, and poked him. "Hello? Anyone in there?" he asked.  
Natasha slapped his hands away, at his side in a second. "Leave him alone. Jarvis, could you verify that this is Alex Rider, performer of the crimes Joe Byrne told us?"  
"I can indeed verify that this is Alex Rider. It may interest you to know that he is British, fifteen years of age, suffers a number of mental problems which the prison therapists have so far been unable to determine due to his short stays with them, and is currently drugged but will come back to full consciousness in a minute or so."  
"Thanks, Jarvis." Bruce said.  
"There were never child killers in my time." Steve said sorrowfully. "Where did all this madness at such a young age come from?"  
Everyone ignored him.

The boy- Alex- started moving, clenching his fists and scrunching up his eyes before opening them a tiny slit, raising himself to sitting position by his elbows. "Wha- where am I?" he said confusedly, with an American accent. "Who are you? What do you want from me?" He turned his gaze on Tony. "Oh my god, you're Stark, right? Can I have your autograph?" A sudden suspicion filled his eyes. "Is this some kind of TV show?"  
"Are you Alex Rider?" asked Natasha, suddenly hesitant.  
"No. Whose he? I'm Bob Dylan, from... LA."  
"Bob Dylan." Natasha said flatly, while Tony stifled a laugh.  
Alex scowled. "Busted." he said in a British accent. "I knew there was something familiar about that. But the questions at the beginning were good, right? Wha, where, who, what. You gotta remember that the first one is always a 'wha' without the 't'. And I know I got the accent right."  
"So you are Alex Rider, the criminal." Bruce said, coming up.  
"Uh huh." Alex agreed, standing up and holding out a hand. "Nice to meet you. Guy with the green steroid pumped, other alias, right?"  
Bruce shook it. "Yeah. Insane murderer, right?"  
"That's me." Alex grinned. He turned to Stark. "Was I right? You're Iron Man?"  
"The one and only." Tony smirked. "I'd say it was nice to meet you, but you're evil, so it's not really." He shook Alex's hand anyway, as the boy looked mock offended.

Thor and Steve watched with a slightly mystified expression. Wasn't the boy meant to be a criminal?

Alex waved at Clint, sitting the other side of the room. "Love the whole bow, arrow thing, man. S'awesome."  
"Thanks."  
Then Alex turned to Natasha. "Everyone at '6 was talking about you when that alien thing happened. First famous spy ever, they said. Apart from James Bond, so I guess it's first female spy to go famous. And first American one. Well, I always knew Britain beats everyone else in everything." He held out a hand to shake. Natasha took it, spun him round, and handcuffed him.  
"You're under arrest." she said coldly.  
"Aw." Alex sighed. "I was hoping you'd just let me out. Coz I'm a kid and everything."  
"Nope-" then Alex spun round, swept Natasha's feet from under her, and punched her in the face.

The room froze.

Alex ran.

Natasha leaped after him, flinging herself onto him and holding him in a deadly choke position. "Can't- breath-" he choked out, his face turning an odd sort of blue. Natasha loosed her hold on him slightly. "Worth a try." he smiled at her. She didn't smile back.  
"Why did you do it?" she asked softly. "You're so different from the boy I once knew."  
He stared at her blankly. "Sorry, lady, but I have never met you before. Believe me, I'd remember if I did." he winked. She didn't even scowl.  
"An alias of mine has been Tamara Knight." she told him in the same soft voice. "A year ago, that was one of my missions."  
Alex raised his eyebrows at her. "Tamara? Well, what a nice surprise." His smirk widened. "Does this mean you'll let me go?"  
"You haven't answered my question. Why did you do it?"  
"Would you believe me if I said I was innocent."  
"Yes."  
"No, you wouldn't. No one ever does." The smirk was still on his face, but it had become just a little strained.  
"I would. Look at me in the eyes and tell me you're innocent and I'll believe you. But you're not, are you?"  
He looked straight into her eyes and said; "I'm innocent. I didn't do any of what they accused me of."  
He waited. Everyone waited.  
"I'm sorry." she said eventually. "I can't let you go."  
"Do you believe me?"  
"No."  
"Right." he said. He sighed. "Right. Ok."  
Tony stepped in. "I hate to interfere in this obviously emotional, betrayal thick moment, but I really need to go to sleep."  
Alex looked at him, noting the man's slumped shoulders and hooded eyes with dark shadows underneath them. "Yeah. You look like crap, man."  
Tony stared right back at him, with his bruised face and tired blue eyes. "So do you."  
"Was gonna get high on coffee." Alex shrugged. "But when I went into the stupid shop, this guard caught me. Real shame. Pumped me full of drugs, as well."  
"Big shame." Tony said dryly. He swayed suddenly on his feet, staggering over to the wall and grasping it.  
"Jarvis?" Clint said. "When was the last time Tony went to sleep?"  
"Four days in total, though he had five one hour sleeps in that time."  
"Told you I needed to sleep." Tony grinned, his voice slightly slurred. "You'll put the kid in the cell and everything, right? Ask Jarvis for directions..." he groped his way along the wall like a blind man, slightly panicked at his sudden transformation from almost-fine to three-quarters-dead.  
"You do know that's kinda creepy right?" Alex said to the billionaire's departing back. "The man in the wall and everything?"

Tony made it to the corridor outside, before collapsing. His eyes were suddenly heavy, and his limbs hard to move, and those black flashes were swarming in front of his vision into a solid black mass that descended him, closer and closer until sleep enveloped him and the last thing he saw was a white patch on his palm, half full of liquid being pumped into him, right where the kid had shook his hand.  
Well, damn.

Alex smirked. Right, Tony was out; the patches were both successfully on Natasha and Bruce. Three down, three to go. Though Thor and the Captain guy (what was his name) might be hard; did the drugs he'd stolen from the guard's pocket work on demi gods and super soldiers?  
It better.

He looked at Natasha- now he thought about it, the similarities between her and the Tamara Knight he knew were startlingly obvious- and quashed the minute pang that stung through him. Of course she wouldn't believe him. Why would she?

Yup, unfortunately far too good to believe his lie.

He felt rather than saw her grip slack a little. "I think I'm kinda tired as well," she said, almost bewilderedly.  
"That's 'cause you never sleep, Tash." Clint said from the other side of the room.  
"Not that you see." she shot back, but her heart not really in the banter. Where the hell did this sudden fatigue come from? Maybe it was Tony infecting her with his sleeplessness. Yeah, sure.  
Alex pulled away from her, smirk widening when she didn't resist, and sauntered casually over to Thor and Captain, hands still cuffed behind his back.  
"Hey." he grinned. "How's life, boyos?" He took another step forwards, tripped on a chair leg, toppled into Thor- slap, one patch on- and awkwardly levered his hands in front of him so he could stand up, using the nearest prop who just happened to be the Captain.

Slap, next patch. One to go.

"I think-" Bruce slurred from behind him. "Guys, I think-" He must've looked down or something, and saw the patch on his hand, and looked back at Alex; damn, he'd got it. "Jarvis, procedure seven three one nine!" then he collapsed.

Followed by Natasha.

Alex grinned again at his work. In their own tower, unarmed (practically), only sixteen, beating every single Avenger with a few patches full of drugs.

"Hey! Kid! What did you do?" Clint was shouting. He stormed over to Natasha and pulled back her eyelids, checking to see if they rolled back- Alex threw his last patch almost like a frisbee, skimming it towards Clint's neck and smiling as it landed, sinking it's little spines into his flesh. A few minutes and he'd be out too.  
"Comrades, I feel-" Thor started, before face planting in his food.  
"You-" Captain (he really needed to stop calling him Captain) spluttered, before slumping.  
Alex waved at them both. Turned out their respective abilities had ade the drug work quicker, for whatever reason.

He absently fiddled with the handcuffs, watching as Clint collapsed on Natasha. They came apart with a click. "Hey, kid-" Clint choked. "That was some skill."  
"Thanks." Alex smiled, pleased. Clint couldn't feel his legs and arms by then.  
"Yeah, but please, please- when I faint or whatever, get me off Natasha! I wake up on top of her, I'm dead."  
"If I get captured again, you owe me." Alex bargained. Always good to have options.  
"Done.." Clint breathed, before his eyelids slid over his eyes.

Alex grabbed him by the ankles and dragged him off Natasha. He thought for a second, then with great difficultly moved Thor onto Natasha instead. He positioned the demi god's arm under the not-Tamara and curled Natasha's leg round Thor. He moved their heads together, so their lips were touching.

A Stark phone was peeking out of Thor's pocket. Alex pulled it out, thanked god there wasn't a pass code, took a picture of the happy couple and laid it down next to them.

He took a plateful of food and emptied it on top of the Captain (he still couldn't remember the man's name!) and ate some of the leftovers himself. He left Clint, because they'd made a deal and he honoured his customers, and stole Bruce's wallet. There was a driving licence in there; he drew 'GREEN GUY' in Sharpie and left it next to him, taking the cash.

Outside was Stark, slumped on the ground next to the door. Iron Man had been Alex's hero for most of his childhood, and his weaponry had saved his neck many a times in the past year, ever since he uncovered that hidden stash of Stark tech, so he left Tony as well.

He took the stairs down (after that stint in India he'd developed claustrophobia, so the lift was out of question) and remembered the man in the wall. "Jarvis?" he said hesitantly, feeling like a fool.  
No one answered.

Huh, it must be some kind of operating system activated by only their voices or something.

He took the back entrance, got wrapped in some kind of invisible web, struggled, and when he was well and truly entangled remembered about 'protocol three seventy nine' which Green Guy had shouted or something like that; Jarvis finally answered, with a smug "Protocol three seven one nine completed." Which turned out to be an invisible web strung across the back entrance. Which he was tangled in. Like a fucking fly.

Gah, he was stuck.

0

A couple of hours later, the Avengers woke up.

The reaction was horrifying, immediate and brutal.

Natasha pushed Thor off her and started punching him, and when he woke up she promptly strangled him back into unconsciousness. She backed away from him as he woke up and protested innocence. After one last stony look, Natasha scrubbed every part of her body that had touched the god- because though she'd been in situations like these many times, it was with Thor, and he was lying on her like they'd just had god damned sex, and god dammit, it was Thor- and then she made him swear not to tell anyone as the others woke up.

Clint woke up, smirked, lounged against the wall and thanked anything up there that the kid had moved him, then started to run because he'd just remembered that the kid had escaped. And stopped, because Alex would be long gone, so Clint went back to lounging against the wall.

Steve woke up and rushed to the bathroom. He frantically started cleaning the food off his new suit, which had been a present from Rose, his new girlfriend, as a reward for learning how to text.

Bruce awoke. His mind quickly recounted all the events from before he'd been drugged. He mentally smirked to himself as he remembered the capture procedure he and Tony had put in place just-in-case which the kid was probably stuck in. He should probably alert the others and then they could go down and collect their prisoner; then Bruce caught sight of his ruined driver's licence, marred with a 'GREEN GUY' writing. Fine. Rider wanted to play it like that? Well, he could wait in the web a while longer.

Tony woke up, realised he was still tired, and realised he had been drugged. He sauntered back into the room, knowing that the kid had probably evaded them all and escaped, and sure enough, there was no Alex, just a bunch of drowsy looking Avengers.

He caught sight of a Stark phone lying on the floor. On the floor! Such precious tech should not be left around in a precarious position like that. Tony scooped up the phone, and saw the picture.

He smiled.

Then he burst out laughing.

The others noticed him. "What?" Natasha asked, annoyed. Tony sent the picture to everyone in the contacts list with a quick swipe, just-in-case, then turned it round to show the others.

Thor went red and Natasha went white. The others had a similar reaction to Tony, breaking out in first surprised smiles then roaring laughter.

Once Natasha had given them all a dozen bruises and forced Tony to delete the picture (thank god he'd sent it to everyone beforehand) Bruce informed them that the kid was not, in fact, escaped, and instead was tangled up in a net, waiting at the the back door. Tony grinned; his just-in-case plans always worked.

Natasha tossed them a couple of guns each and they trooped downstairs.

The kid was, as Bruce had said, tangled in the web in the doorway. They warily cut him loose. "Good try though, right?" he grinned at them as they led him along by gunpoint.  
"Yeah." Clint agreed.  
"Nice pics, kid. I'm impressed." Tony added with a smirk. Alex smiled at him.  
"Thank you. One of my better ideas, I admit."  
Natasha scowled and jabbed him in the back. He hissed in pain. "Ow, jeez, that hurt."  
"It wasn't even that hard!" she protested.  
Alex shrugged. "Old wound." he said, suddenly quiet.  
The conversation stopped awkwardly until they got to the lift.

The doors opened automatically and Tony stepped in; Natasha motioned for Alex to go in before them. "Uh, can we take the stairs?" he said hesitantly.  
"Seriously?" Tony said with raised eyebrows. "The teenage wonder killer is claustrophobic?"  
"I said, can we take the stairs?" Alex said in a harder voice.  
"Sure, kid." Bruce said. "Just don't try and escape again, yeah?"  
"Yeah," agreed Tony. "It was a neat attempt, but you know we're gonna catch you."  
"And next time you try there will be consequences." Natasha added.  
"Okay." Alex shrugged. "I won't. Promise."

**And basically from there he was just gonna keep trying escape attempts. So. Yeah. I'm really sorry I gave this story up but it is in GOOD HANDS and it's not like I gave it up- um, AHEM, I mean, an amazing author adopted it so yeah.**

**Oh.**

**And.**

**Shameless self advertising;**

**If you like my writing...**

**If you like Alex Rider fics, I have a 90k+ WIP angsty snarky wonderful Facades That Hide Us being updated now. Check it out.**

**If you like Avengers fics, I have a WIP TONY STARK FRICKING RULES 'Tony Is (Not) An Annoying, Scrawny Brat' being updated now. Check it out. Also many more Avengers fics coming soon because, well, I have suddenly fallen in love with them. **

**Thanks then.**

**Bye!**


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